Resilient Supply Chains: An Empirical Analysis of Recovery in the Retail Sector

This dissertation addresses the question of how supply chain dynamic capabilities influence companies' resilience after a disruption. The current world context is characterised by a climate of instability and uncertainty. Considering this, the study was motivated by the increasing necessity for companies to adapt to these volatile environments. Furthermore, another motivation resides in the limited research on how these capabilities, in practice, interact to create supply chain resilience. The main goal of this study is related with the identification of the capabilities that contribute to the recovery of companies in the retail sector. In this context, resilience is associated with the concept of recovery, and was assessed using performance measures in the years before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. To answer this question, data from real companies in the Eurozone retail sector were extracted from the ORBIS database. Supply chain dynamic capabilities – Supplier Efficiency, Inventory Management and Operational Flexibility – were operationalised with that data and logistic regression models were built to estimate the impact of supply chain dynamic capabilities variables on company recovery. The results indicate that Supplier Efficiency has a positive and significant effect on company recovery, suggesting that companies that are more efficient in managing supplier costs are more likely to recover after a disruption. Inventory Management and Operational Flexibility are shown to be unrelated to a company’s recovery, which may be related to the complexity of these capabilities.